The present invention relates to a connector, particularly to a connector to be attached to a garment in such a manner that a conductive member-installed attachment portion of the garment is sandwiched from the opposite sides by a first member and a second member of the connector.
In recent years, so-called wearable devices in which terminal devices such as various sensors and communication devices operate as being worn by a user have attracted attention. Such a wearable device is used as being mounted on a garment worn by a user for example; however, when the garment is washed or on other occasions, the wearable device is desired to be detached from the garment.
In order to detachably mount a wearable device on a garment, one method that has been proposed is attaching such a connector as disclosed by, for instance, JP 2017-182897 A to a garment and mounting a wearable device on the garment via the connector.
The connector disclosed by JP 2017-182897 A has a base member 1 in a circular disk shape and a frame member 2 in an annular shape as shown in FIG. 27. A plurality of contacts 3 are disposed in the base member 1. One end of each contact 3 is exposed on a surface of the base member 1 as a contact portion 3A, and the other end thereof forms a projection projecting from the surface of the base member 1 as an external connection portion 3B in the vicinity of the outer edge of the surface of the base member 1. The remaining portions of each contact 3 other than the contact portion 3A and the external connection portion 3B are embedded in the base member 1.
The frame member 2 has an opening portion 4 formed in the center, and the surface of the frame member 2 facing the base member 1 has a plurality of recesses (not shown) corresponding to the external connection portions 3B of the base member 1.
A garment 5 has an opening portion 6 of a similar size to the opening portion 4 of the frame member 2, and a plurality of conductive members 7 corresponding to the contacts 3 are attached to the rear surface of the garment 5. By firmly pressing the frame member 2 against the base member 1 with the garment 5 being sandwiched between the base member 1 and the frame member 2, the external connection portions 3B of the base member 1 are correspondingly fitted into the recesses of the frame member 2 as catching the conductive members 7 attached to the garment 5, whereby the contacts 3 are connected to the conductive members 7 and the connector is attached to the garment 5.
A wearable device (not shown) is inserted in the opening portion 4 of the frame member 2, thereby mounted on the connector, and consequently connected to the contact portions 3A of the contacts 3 exposed through the opening portion 6 of the garment 5 and the opening portion 4 of the frame member 2.
In the connector of JP 2017-182897 A, however, the garment 5 is, together with the conductive members 7, sandwiched between the external connection portions 3B of the base member 1 and the recesses of the frame member 2, and therefore, the garment 5 wrinkles disadvantageously.
There is another problem in that, when a conductive thread formed by twisting a plurality of fibrous conductors and covering the resulting thread with an insulating layer is used for the conductive members 7 of the garment 5, the conductive members 7 cannot be electrically connected to the contacts 3 only by fitting the external connection portions 3B of the base member 1 in the recesses of the frame member 2 such that the external connection portions 3B catch the conductive members 7, due to the presence of the insulating layer.